Brincante

The feature film entitled “Brincante” dives into the work of Antonio Nóbrega. This journey, that leads the viewer through his work, is conducted by two characters: João Sidurino and Rosalina – from the plays “Brincante” and “Segundas Histórias” respectively, created by Nóbrega and Rosane Almeida. Hybrid of fiction and documentary, ‘Brincante’ shows an artist’s path using Brazilian popular culture’s imaginarium to create a work that alternates through theatre, music and dance as the movie progresses, creating a diversity in itself. The feature film, directed by Walter Carvalho and produced by Gullane Filmes, with the support of Brincante Produções, was released in theatres in 2014.

My main idea was the core of the art direction to be formed by a triad of byzantine art, the work of artist “Bispo do Rosário” and the logical structure of scene construction from the theatre, all under a Brazilian popular point of view.

Concept: With the movie script in mind, I thought about some requirements that needed to be solved for the creation of this piece, like esthetics, technique, content and how these points would work together. Without a doubt, the most important point of the production was to highlight the work of Antônio Nóbrega, according to the movie’s content and esthetical structure. Besides all the content to be elaborated, there was still an issue on the credits to be solved. In other words, I needed to plan how to expose the texts in the video.

Boards: Just like in the storyboard development step, I’ve created some boards so that we could make some decisions about layout, composition, sceneries, takes, ideas.

A good way to summarize the art direction of this movie is to see it as a triad, as explained below: Acquainted with the work of Antônio Nóbrega, I referenced to the theatrical logic using bi-dimensional sceneries, like the same viewed in the movies “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)” To be able to put pieces together, I took the work of an artist from Brazil’s state of Minas Gerais called “Bispo do Rosário” as a reference. I perceived, in his way of construction, a dialogue between the art direction of the theatrical pieces of Antônio Nóbrega and the handcrafted objects from the popular culture from the north of Brazil. Finally, I took the byzantine art as a reference, which brings a universe that had influenced the beginning of the Brazilian culture, at the same time it rescues the Christian religiosity and “Lunário Perpétuo”, a book often highlighted in the work of Antônio Nóbrega. The idea was to make emerge a time and space analogous to the Byzantine Empire in today’s world.

As a motion graphic artist, my participation started with an emphasis on the creation and animation of the typography, while in parallel I continued to make observations on art direction. In a second moment my participation was as a compositor, putting scenes together, changing lights, color, timing, framing and stabilizing scenes.

During the final process, I was responsible for the final montage, with the support of the team, revising and retouching the material many times.